Just as everyone is getting tired of LLMs and realizing they're not as useful as they initially seemed
Google releases their version seemingly at the same time all of the shine is coming off of these LLM's and how many people have already fooled around with ChatGPT and have already made up their mind whether its a good thing or a bad thing.
I'm still not sure if this is something that works in Google's favor or against them considering software seems to be a "love it" or "hate it" thing nowadays without much middle ground.